


Deus Ex Machina (God of the Machine)

by WielderOfFairyTales



Category: Everyman HYBRID
Genre: Angst, Deja Vu, Gen, Iteration Theory, Multi, Reincarnation, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:14:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24324853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WielderOfFairyTales/pseuds/WielderOfFairyTales
Summary: Because what was their existence, really, but a well-oiled machine? Gears turned, levers pushed, and their world went on and on and on.
Relationships: Evan & Jeff & Stephanie & Vinny (Everyman HYBRID), Evan/Stephanie (Everyman HYBRID), HABIT & Evan (Everyman HYBRID)
Kudos: 14





	Deus Ex Machina (God of the Machine)

**Author's Note:**

> i have no explanation for this please just take my shitty writing

Evan and Steph are curled up against each other on the basement couch, watching the weak dawn-light filter in through the blinds. Birds twitter outside, but inside it is silent. 

(What is there to say?)

Still, the quiet becomes heavy. Steph breaks the stillness, with a hesitant "...Ev?" 

"Yeah?" He turns his head a little to look at her. She is watching him with the eyes of a child forced to grow up too soon - the eyes of someone who should be too young to know loss so intimately.

Evan feels something flutter in his rib cage. The sadness curls in his gut at her expression, but there's something else, too. He feels a little proud, almost, to see her vulnerability (Isn't that a sign of trust? Doesn't that mean she loves him?) before his thoughts are clouded by guilt for thinking it. 

Steph takes a short breath and whispers, "Evan, do you... everyone's going to- is everything going to be okay, do you think?" And he swallows back the lump in his throat, tightens his arms around her, and tries to lie. He wants to tell her, so badly, that no one else is going to get hurt, that they can fight this- this- well, whatever it is, that everyone's going to be safe. 

More than that, he wants it to be the truth. He wants to make it so that Vinny will be okay, and Jeff, and Alex, and Jessa (oh god, _Jessa_. When he remembers, Evan feels like he's going to be sick-), and most of all, Steph. 

Evan thinks he really does love her. And so when he presses his forehead to hers, and whispers, "I don't know," she kisses him and he tries to lose himself in her.

In the back of his mind, he feels the deja vu and wonders how many times they've had that same conversation, and how many more times they will. 

__________

Later, even as Evan sobs and screams and gags at the overwhelming taste of blood, the voice he's getting used to hearing in the back of his mind asks how many times Steph has met the same fate. How many of their children died before they got the chance to live?

(More than he wants to think about.)

__________

Jeff isn't stupid. He knows he's going to die, even before HABIT tells him so gleefully, even before he's in that yellow plastic chair in the attic.   
  


He fights anyway, of course, because just as HABIT has to kill him, Jeff has to fight. HABIT is meant to destroy, Jeff to protect. In that way, they’re two sides of the same coin.   
  


It’s a weighted coin, Jeff thinks as he dies. HABIT was always going to win over him.   
  


Jeff wasn’t stupid. He knew he was going to die.   
  


(He thinks he knew that for a while.) 

__________

As he bleeds out next to Evan, who is likely already waiting for him in the Candleverse, Vinny thinks to himself that he really should've known HABIT better. He'd grown complacent. He'd forgotten just what HABIT was. And so HABIT dangled the bait in front of him, and Vinny took it so willingly. 

_Like a rabbit lunging for a carrot_ , he thinks wryly. HABIT knew just how to turn him and Evan against each other. When Vinny thinks back on HABIT's actions earlier, it's so obvious he wants to scream. Every little detail, set up perfectly. HABIT was the puppet master, and he knew how to make every last one of them dance. 

**Author's Note:**

> hi. can you tell i have no idea how to write jeff


End file.
